


the clouds explode and then the desert blooms

by literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Supernatural Elements, Trans Jesse McCree, Trans Male Character, Trans Reaper | Gabriel Reyes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-23
Updated: 2017-11-23
Packaged: 2019-02-05 22:35:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12803853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte/pseuds/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte
Summary: The man in black is dead, and the gunslinger mourns.God only knows where he’s going.Or, more likely, it’s the Devil who knows.





	the clouds explode and then the desert blooms

A lone coyote cries out. Juniper trees struck by the weather sway to the side, responding drunkenly in their language of leaves. The wind and the rain share a secret under a black curtain of clouds, and white-hot fingers of lightning pull it back to expose the naked moon.

Jesse rides until it stops. He continues into the night, cold and wet, clutching the urn to his chest.

God only knows where he’s going.

Or, more likely, it’s the Devil who knows.

After all, the Devil is following him. Every so often Jesse looks over his shoulder to see him - a shape of the silence in the desert, a shadow on the ground when there's no one else around but him and his horse.

The pinto horse he bought off a rancher for cheap - said she was too stubborn, couldn’t be tamed - treads slowly over the slick road. He reaches down with his free hand and strokes her long neck. Her ear twitches and he smiles. It’s taken her a while to warm up to him, but he’s determined.

She stops suddenly, seeing something he can't. She rears back and he almost slides out of the saddle. He digs in his spurs and pulls back her reins.

“Easy now,” he says. She settles back down, nickering at him.

She just needs a patient hand. He understands. He was young and wild once, too.

The miles disappear beneath her hooves. The smell of wet mesquite fades away with the last trace of real green, replaced by red dirt like the hillsides are seasoned with paprika.

The hours eat away the syrupy morning and the empty sky is bright as Union blue. Underneath it, the world he occupies is stuck in shades of orange and brown.

Two mountains face each other. In the shadow of a Mexican standoff, he finds a stream where his horse can drink and he can fill his canteens. He takes the time to clean his revolver as well. Dust gets in the barrel. He wipes it down until the surface shines like polished glass.

He stares at it, and a tired face with dark eyes stares back at him. He can see sand and dirt in the stranger’s unwashed hair. He looks away, disgusted.

No matter how clean the peacekeeper is, he still feels dirty touching it. Has felt that way since he last pulled the trigger.

A rabbit with its ribs showing through its skin watches him from across the water. He puts the gun back in its holster and goes to pick up the urn again. His knuckles brush against its side, and for a second it looks like it’s about to tip over.

He quickly steadies it in his hands, heart pounding. He stares at it intensely, as if it’s possessed and could run away at any moment when he’s not guarding it.

“You could drive an angel to sin, you know?” he says to the urn. “Hell, I haven’t seen Angela in a couple years. Maybe you already have.”

He laughs. Tears prick his eyes. A hot wind blows over the water, and his horse kicks up a cloud of dirt and whinnies. His cheeks are red and wet. He keeps laughing.

When he looks back up, the rabbit is dead. The stream ripples between him and the mangled, bloodless body.

The road ends here - the maintained one, that is. He thinks he knows where he's going now, but that might just be the Devil playing tricks with his mind. Jesse mounts his horse and sets off with her into the distance.

All the moisture and movement to the air is gone. He saves his water by chewing on his jerky instead. The beef is hard and gamy, but his dry mouth starts to salivate at the taste of salt.

The only respite from the sun comes from his sweat-soaked shirt cooling on his skin. Once, when he was younger and dysphoria had its ugly hand around his throat, he wore bandages for too long in the summer and ended up with an ungodly rash.

Now his chest is flat and muscular, but his ribs still bear the consequences.

He observes the horizon, shimmering with heat. He squints - there's something out there. Someone. He can see the silhouette of a man, tall with broad shoulders.

It could be a drifter. It could be a Deadlock, though he heard they moved on a while ago. Or it could be the Devil.

His heart is overjoyed, but his hand instinctively reaches for his gun. He'd rather be paranoid than lose a staring contest with the black eye of a barrel.

His horse makes a soft noise. He guides her closer, about twenty feet, and then he has to laugh at himself.

The cactus surrenders to him with its hands up, buds bursting with fear. The Devil is a whisper to the west, laughing at him.

He used to tell himself he dressed like a man as a shield from the Deadlock’s poisonous mouths and tobacco-stained teeth. It was only for safety. Not because it felt natural, felt right. Not because he'd been doing it ever since he ran away as a teenager and could take any identity he wanted for himself. The first man to look at him and see the truth inside changed everything for Jesse.

Before that man, all he knew were boys, baby-faced boys like him trying to be men in curve-obscuring clothes a size too big for them. He showed Jesse a future as more than a real man. A future as a hero.

He always wanted to be better than the rest of the gang, but the urn is too heavy in his arms for that now.

The mid-afternoon sun beats down on him. Harsh light reflects off the towers of rocks and pierces his eyes. Blowflies swarm over a pile of lizard droppings and carcasses with legs curled upward like a dead tarantula. Shadows of buzzards loom above them.

A layer of dust covers the old, cracked highway. The gas station stands alone, a derelict in a sea of sand. The paint has faded to a cornflower blue, and where it has chipped away, the texture of rust reminds him of dried blood.

His horse is quiet as they ride by. Everything is quiet.

Behind him, the Devil is smoke from spectral gunfire.

Most of it has been scavenged for parts, but the train is still there. The only sound comes from the air grasping for purchase between the loose sheets of metal.

A gecko, looking for shade, scurries over the steps of the diner. The doors are gone and the windows are smashed in. Light preaches to the pews of dust motes.

This is where Gabriel Reyes found him, the damn ingrate, all those years ago.

He ties his horse to the rail. She snorts and flicks her tail. He leaves her and takes the urn with him to edge of the gorge. The wind is in his hair.

For a long, quiet moment, Jesse exchanges a look with the Devil.

“Someone had to do it,” he says. “Seems fitting it’d be me.”

“You always did have a high opinion of yourself,” the Devil says.

Jesse empties the urn over the edge. The ashes scatter in the wind, and only the Devil knows where they go.

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from “ezekiel 7 and the permanent efficacy of grace” by the mountain goats. from the overwatch wiki: _"The few bodies recovered of those he kills are pale, empty husks drained of life, their cells showing signs of intense degradation... Even after the complete destruction of his body, Reaper has been observed to retain some kind of form as a black mist, apparently able to regain physical form at a later point."_


End file.
